


Of Name Signs and Cabinet Meetings

by Des98



Series: Into the Silence Verse [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, The Return of Minister Fluffybeak, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, a bit of worldbuilding for my arbitrary vague and made up sign language(s), an awkward turtleduck beloved by the palace staff, dragon zuko although that's not really relevent to this fluffpiece, mute Zuko, my inner linguistics nerd is coming out a bit in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Zuko refuses to start a meeting without his minister of Etiquette.
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The palace staff and Zuko, Zuko & the Fire Nation
Series: Into the Silence Verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820716
Comments: 17
Kudos: 407





	Of Name Signs and Cabinet Meetings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Silence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24841747) by [Electrons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Electrons/pseuds/Electrons). 



> For those of you waiting on a mini!Zuko update, fear not! Tomorrow and the next day I have off so send me good thoughts and I'll (hopefully) get some writing done lol. But for now I'm tired from working six days in a row at a very physical job determined to kick my ass while I look for something better and so I'm tired and only had the energy for a fluff piece.

Zuko’s advisors were all currently very agitated as they waited for the council meeting to start. Zuko was trying not to smirk, and next to him, Sokka was doing his very best not to burst into laughter.

A vein twitched in someone’s forehead.

“Please, Fire Lord, not to question your wisdom, (the look on his face made it very clear he was doing just that), but what, exactly, are we waiting to start the meeting for?”  
Zuko’s face took on a look of feux-surprise. “Why, our final minister,” he signed, and Sokka repeated it dutifully, his voice a bit choked up as he held back his mirth. “You didn’t _really_ think we’d start this meeting without the Minister of Etiquette, did you?”

“We’re… we’re waiting on the turtleduck?” someone asked.

“Minister Shogun, please, show some respect. Minister Fluffybeak is a valued and respected member of this cabinet.” The name-sign that Zuko had given Minister Fluffybeak was to form the shape of a beak by sticking his fingers out, and then opening and shutting them as if to emulate a quacking motion.

“Could you ask a servant to bring him?” he asked Sokka, but a servant stepped forward before he could interpret.

“I would be happy to do it, my lord,” she said out loud, and Zuko started. “You know sign?” he asked her with his hands. 

He was understandably surprised. Since the fall of the air nomads, the language had largely fallen out of use except for among small, affluent pockets of Ba Sing Se and Omashu, where there were schools for the deaf, although only the very rich could afford to send their children. The fire nation took a more ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to people with visible disabilities (and for a while, by order of his father, that had included Zuko). While Zuko was trying to change that, any deaf children in the fire nation as it was had to either learn to lip read or be limited to whatever homesign they and their families could come up with. Smaller pockets of sign languages _had_ popped up, according to Zuko’s inquiries within the fire nation and earth kingdom. Where there were enough deaf children living in close proximity, a fascinating phenomenon had occurred: they would make their own fully articulate sign language. It was apparently the nature of humanity to find ways to speak with each other, even if that meant creating new systems where no other viable options were provided.

But all of these languages were local, with no formal system to spread or teach them, and spoken by only the small communities that had created them- sometimes as few as two people. The official earth kingdom sign used by affluent deaf children whose families could afford to send them was the most popular, and even then, it had, as far as they could figure, fewer than a thousand users. And the sign that Zuko and his friends used- the air nomad sign language on which all the pre-war signs had been derived- no longer resembled any sign language that currently existed, officially or not. And they’d made a significant number of modifications to the lexicon even then, since Aang sometimes didn’t know or had forgotten words or phrases. As far as Zuko knew, he and his friends were the only one who could use and understand the language they used, so to see a servant understand him had him frozen with astonishment.

“Not really, my lord, but myself and some of the other servants have started to pick it up, and the avatar was happy to show us a few words. Between that and watching you, we’re slowly starting to learn. We serve you, and it’s only right that we should be able to understand you without the need for an interpreter in case you need anything and nobody else is around.” The girl spoke demurely and respectfully, but without fear, and that touched Zuko almost as much as the fact that members of his staff were learning a whole other language just to communicate with him. They’d been terrified of his father, so that they felt comfortable enough in his presence to express as much as the girl just had was amazing, and it made Zuko’s chest feel tight with a comforting warmth.

“Thank you,” he signed, and she smiled.

“We’re not very good yet, but we’re getting better. I’ll go get the Minister.” Her eyes were shining with mirth, and Zuko smiled brilliantly back at her.

“Wait!” he asked, through Sokka. “What is your name?”

“Ichika, Fire Lord Zuko,” she replied.

“Thank you, Ichika,” he responded, fingerspelling her name. His face screwed up in thought for a moment.

“Is it alright if he gave you a name sign?” Sokka asked, watching Zuko’s hands.

“I would be honored,” Ichika bowed low, and Zuko beckoned her up. He held two fists close to his chest, and then pushed his arms backwards and gracefully and slowly opened both fists in a motion like flowers blooming. For someone with a name that meant ‘a thousand flowers’ it was more than appropriate.

Ichika smiled and repeated it before scurrying away. Moments later she was back with a fluffy young turtleduck on a velvet pillow, wearing a custom-made little gold cape.

Minister Fluffybeak quacked in delight upon seeing Zuko. The fire lord pulled a handful of breadcrumbs out of his pocket and held them out, and the little animal gobbled them up eagerly before flapping his way to rest atop the young man’s head, right in front of his crown-bedecked topknot.

“We are ready to begin,” Sokka interpreted Zuko’s serene signing, and everyone else pointedly said nothing about the fact that the minister of Etiquette was sitting on the fire lord’s head.

The Minister of Etiquette quacked his loud agreement as Zuko began to explain his plans for educational reform.


End file.
